The goblin's club shattered three of my ribs.
I knew it was three specifically because the System was kind enough to inform me with a damage notification while I was busy coughing blood onto the dungeon floor.
Tti-ring.
[You have received fatal damage.]
[HP: 23/180]
[Status Effect Applied: Severe Internal Bleeding]
[Estimated survival time: 4 minutes 37 seconds]
'Ah.'
That was my first thought. Not panic. Not fear. Just a quiet, tired acknowledgment.
'So this is how I die.'
The goblin chittered above me—a sound somewhere between laughter and hunger—and raised its club for the finishing blow. Level 12. I was Level 8. In a straight fight, it wasn't even close.
But then again, none of my fights were ever close.
"Jae-Hyuk, you worthless piece of shit!" Kim Tae-Sung's voice cut through the cavern like a whip. Our party leader. C-rank fire mage. Professional asshole. "I said HOLD AGGRO, not die like a dog!"
I tried to roll away. My body screamed in protest—broken ribs grinding against each other, lungs struggling to inflate, vision blurring at the edges. The goblin tracked my movement with those yellow, predatory eyes.
It swung.
I got my dagger up just in time to deflect—barely. The club glanced off the cheap blade (900 won at a pawn shop, worst investment of my life) and cracked stone inches from my skull.
"Someone kill this thing!" My voice came out as a wheeze.
Lee Hana did. One arrow, clean through the eye socket. The goblin dissolved into black particles and scattered loot. She didn't even glance at me while collecting the mana stone.
'Of course not.'
I pushed myself up, testing my ribs with shallow breaths. The System's healing was already working—E-rank regeneration, slow as erosion, barely enough to keep me alive. Never enough to actually matter.
[HP: 31/180]
[Estimated full recovery: 47 hours]
Forty-seven hours. We'd be out of this dungeon in six, and I'd spend the next two days barely able to move.
"Take ten," Tae-Sung announced, his fireball dissipating. The rest of the party—all C-rank, all competent, all tired of my existence—found places to sit and rest.
I stayed standing. Sitting meant I'd have to get up again.
Park Jin-Woo, our tank, threw me a canteen without comment. Small mercy. I caught it, drank, and did the math I'd been avoiding all day.
Six hours in this C-rank Gate. Twenty-three goblins cleared. My contribution: meat shield. Distraction. Comic relief.
My cut of the loot: maybe 40,000 won if Tae-Sung felt generous.
Rent due next week: 450,000 won.
The numbers didn't add up. They never did.
"Hey." Hana was suddenly beside me, voice pitched low. "You okay?"
I glanced at her. Our scout—sharp eyes, sharper instincts, and the only person who'd voted against bringing me on this raid. She'd been outvoted three to one.
"Define okay," I said.
"Jae-Hyuk..." Her expression twisted with something that might've been pity. I hated it. "You know you don't have to keep doing this, right? There's other work—"
"Like what?" I kept my voice flat. "Convenience store? Factory line? I've done those. They pay worse and my knees still hurt."
"At least you wouldn't—" She stopped. Looked away. "Never mind."
Wouldn't die, she meant. Wouldn't get your skull caved in by a goblin while scraping for pennies in a world that sorted people into winners and waste.
Three years ago, I'd awakened. E-rank. The System's way of saying: Congratulations, you're technically special, but not enough to matter.
My Skills?
[Inferior Physical Enhancement (Passive)] - +5% to Strength and Agility. Revolutionary.
[Mana Sense (Active)] - Detect mana signatures within 3 meters. Great for knowing exactly how badly I was about to die.
That was it. Two skills. No growth potential. No hidden talent waiting to bloom. Just me, broken ribs, and the certain knowledge that somewhere out there, S-rank Hunters were soloing A-rank Gates while I struggled with goblins.
The System had given me scraps and called it a blessing.
'Some blessing.'
"Boss," Jin-Woo called from the tunnel entrance. "We're at the split. Which way?"
Tae-Sung consulted his dungeon map—expensive, professionally scouted, probably cost more than my entire month's earnings. His finger traced two paths.
"Right tunnel leads to the boss chamber. Left is a resource room. More goblins, probably better loot."
"Boss chamber," Hana said immediately. "We're already behind schedule."
"Agreed." Tae-Sung folded the map. Then, almost casually: "Jae-Hyuk takes point."
The dungeon went very quiet.
"...What?" I said.
"You heard me. Boss room might have traps. You've got Mana Sense." His expression was perfectly neutral. "Use it."
Something cold coiled in my gut—a familiar feeling I'd learned to recognize over three years of being disposable.
I looked at each of them in turn.
Tae-Sung's face: unreadable.
Jin-Woo's eyes: locked on the floor.
Hana: gone very, very still.
"Point position is for tanks," I said slowly, carefully. "Or scouts with actual combat stats."
"Are you refusing?" Tae-Sung's voice dropped ten degrees.
The pieces clicked into place. Wrong pieces. Bad pieces.
They weren't planning to split my cut of the loot.
They were planning to eliminate the need to split it at all.
"I'm E-rank," I said. My voice stayed steady. I was proud of that. "If there's a trap, I'm dead. If there's an ambush, I'm dead. You know that."
"Then be useful for once and trigger it before someone valuable gets hurt." Tae-Sung turned away, dismissing me. "Move out in five. Jae-Hyuk leads."
Jin-Woo shifted his grip on his shield—guilty conscience, probably. Hana's hand drifted toward her bowstring, then stopped. She wouldn't defend me. Couldn't. Not against three C-ranks.
Four C-ranks. One E-rank. No witnesses in a dungeon.
I could refuse. Walk out right now. The Gate would close in eight hours whether we cleared it or not. I'd lose my deposit, maybe get blacklisted from a few guilds, but I'd keep my life.
But I'd already counted my share of this run. Already planned which bills it would cover. Already swallowed enough pride to last a lifetime.
Besides.
'What's the point?'
Next month would be the same. And the month after. And the one after that. An endless treadmill of debt and humiliation and broken ribs, until one day I'd get unlucky and a goblin would cave in my skull for real.
Maybe this was mercy. Getting it over with.
"Fine," I said, and started walking toward the right tunnel.
Behind me, I heard Hana whisper: "Tae-Sung, this is—"
"Shut up."
Yeah. That's what I thought.
The corridor sloped downward, widening into a chamber that made every hair on my body stand up.
My Mana Sense activated automatically, and what it showed me was wrong.
Not goblins. Worse.
Tti-ring.
[WARNING: Dungeon Boss Detected]
[Enemy: Goblin Shaman - Level 28]
[Recommended Party Level: 25+]
[Recommended Party Size: 15+ Hunters]
The notification burned across my vision like a brand.
Level 28.
The briefing said Level 20, maximum.
"What the—" Jin-Woo's voice cracked behind me. "Twenty-eight?!"
"Information must've been wrong," Tae-Sung said, but he sounded shaken. Scared, even.
The Goblin Shaman sat on a throne made of bones and skulls—too many skulls, some of them human—with a staff crackling with purple lightning. Its eyes fixed on me with disturbing intelligence, and its lips pulled back in something that might've been a smile.
Around it, at least forty High Orc Warriors stood at attention. Level 15-18, every single one.
We were five people.
We were so, so dead.
"Fall back!" Hana's voice pitched high with panic. "Regroup, we need to—"
The Shaman raised its staff.
Reality bent.
I saw the spell forming—a massive sphere of purple lightning, dense enough that looking at it hurt, large enough to vaporize everything in a fifteen-meter radius. Saw it lock onto me specifically, because of course it did.
I was the weakest thing in the room. Easy target.
I had maybe three seconds.
"MOVE!" I screamed, throwing myself sideways.
The spell followed me.
Time slowed to a crawl. I watched the lightning sphere track my movement with perfect, patient precision. Watched it curve through the air, adjusting trajectory, closing distance.
I looked back.
Saw Tae-Sung grab Hana's arm. Saw him grab Jin-Woo's shoulder.
Saw him make eye contact with me.
Saw him smile.
And then he ran.
They all ran.
'Ah.'
The blast hit me dead center.
PAIN.
That word doesn't do it justice. Pain is stubbing your toe. Pain is breaking your ribs. Pain is dying slowly.
This was annihilation.
My body came apart at the molecular level. Skin peeled away in sheets. Muscle tissue vaporized. Bones turned to powder. The System tried to quantify it:
Tti-ring.
[HP: 0/180]
[FATAL DAMAGE SUSTAINED]
[HEART FUNCTION: STOPPED]
[BRAIN ACTIVITY: CEASED]
[DEATH CONFIRMED]
[DEATH IN: 3...]
[2...]
[1...]
[—]
But I didn't die.
Something caught me. Held me. Suspended me in the space between one heartbeat and the absence of the next.
I floated in nothing.
Not darkness—darkness was something. Light's absence. This was deeper than that. This was the void before creation. The silence after the end. The space where reality hadn't decided to exist yet.
And in that infinite nothing, I heard it:
Tti-ring.
[CRITICAL ERROR DETECTED]
[HUNTER SYSTEM INTEGRITY: COMPROMISED]
[PARADOX IDENTIFIED: HUNTER TERMINATED WHILE SYSTEM PROTOCOLS ACTIVE]
[VIOLATION OF FUNDAMENTAL LAWS]
[EMERGENCY OVERRIDE INITIATED]
[RECALIBRATING...]
[RECALIBRATING...]
[RECALIBRATING...]
[ERROR: STANDARD HUNTER PROTOCOLS INSUFFICIENT]
[SOLUTION: CREATE NEW PROTOCOL]
A presence pressed against my consciousness—vast and cold and utterly alien. It felt like drowning in vacuum. Like being crushed by the weight of empty space itself.
[NEW THRESHOLD DETECTED]
[OFFER: SINGULARITY PROTOCOL]
[WARNING: ACCEPTANCE WILL RESULT IN FUNDAMENTAL ALTERATION OF EXISTENCE]
[WARNING: REJECTION WILL RESULT IN TRUE DEATH]
[HUNTER HAN JAE-HYUK]
[CHOOSE]
I thought of Kim Tae-Sung's smile. Of three years of humiliation. Of broken ribs and unpaid rent and being so tired, so endlessly tired of being weak.
I thought: I don't want to die.
No.
I thought: I don't want to be weak anymore.
[ACCEPTED]
The void smiled.
And then it reached inside me and tore everything apart.
[INITIALIZING SINGULARITY PROTOCOL...]
[RESTRUCTURING MANA CORE...]
[REWRITING STAT PARAMETERS...]
[INSTALLING NEW SKILL ARCHITECTURE...]
[BREAKING LEVEL RESTRICTIONS...]
[REMOVING RANK LIMITATIONS...]
[ELIMINATING GROWTH CEILING...]
[ESTABLISHING INFINITE LOOP...]
[CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE]
Tti-ring.
[WELCOME, PERFECT BUILD USER]
[YOU HAVE BEEN REBORN]
Consciousness returned like a lightning strike.
I gasped—a real breath, oxygen flooding lungs that shouldn't exist anymore—and my eyes snapped open.
I was lying on cold stone. The boss chamber. The Goblin Shaman was still on its throne, staff raised, gathering another spell. The High Orc Warriors stood ready.
None of them had moved.
Time hadn't passed.
But I had changed.
I pushed myself up—one hand, effortless. My ribs weren't broken. My body didn't hurt. I felt... good. Better than good. I felt incredible.
Tti-ring.
[STATUS]
[NAME: Han Jae-Hyuk]
[LEVEL: 28]
[RANK: ??? (EVALUATING...)]
[TITLE: Singularity]
[STATS]
[STRENGTH: 84]
[AGILITY: 79]
[VITALITY: 91]
[INTELLIGENCE: 72]
[SENSE: 88]
[HP: ∞]
[MP: ∞]
I stared at the infinite symbols where my HP and MP should be.
'What...'
More notifications flooded in:
Tti-ring, tti-ring, tti-ring!
[SKILL ACQUIRED: Boundary (Lv. 1)]
[SKILL ACQUIRED: Void Harvest (Lv. 1)]
[PASSIVE ACQUIRED: Singularity Core (MAX)]
[PASSIVE ACQUIRED: Infinite Regeneration (MAX)]
[SKILL LOCKED: Domain Authority - Requirement: Level 50]
[ALL STATS PERMANENTLY INCREASED]
[ALL PREVIOUS LIMITATIONS REMOVED]
[YOU ARE NOW THE PERFECT BUILD]
I looked at my reflection in a pool of blood—my blood, from when I'd died.
White hair. Ice-blue eyes. A face I barely recognized.
The Goblin Shaman's second spell finished charging—purple lightning twice as large as before, enough to kill me ten times over.
It launched.
I raised one hand, almost curious.
"Boundary," I said.
The spell hit something invisible six inches from my palm. The lightning splashed against nothing—an absolute wall in space itself, a barrier that simply refused to let anything through. Purple energy dissipated harmlessly, like rain on glass.
I felt it through my new sense. The boundary between me and everything else. I could see it, feel it, control it with just a thought.
The Shaman's eyes widened in shock.
I smiled. It felt sharp.
Behind me, someone gasped—Hana, still at the entrance. They hadn't left yet. Still watching their bait die.
Except I wasn't dying.
"My turn," I said quietly.
I took a step forward—
—and crossed twenty meters in an instant.
Not super speed. I'd just... reduced the space. Made twenty meters into two. Made distance meaningless.
The Shaman tried to scramble backward. Too slow.
My hand closed around its skull.
"Void Harvest," I whispered.
The effect was immediate and absolute.
The Shaman's mana drained into me—a torrent of power flooding through the connection between us. Its levels, its stats, its very existence flowing backward, feeding the infinite hunger in my chest.
Tti-ring, tti-ring, tti-ring, tti-ring, tti-ring!
[LEVEL UP!][LEVEL UP!][LEVEL UP!][LEVEL UP!][LEVEL UP!]
The Shaman dissolved to ash in my grip, armor and all, until nothing remained but a single glowing mana stone that clattered to the floor.
[VOID HARVEST SUCCESSFUL]
[ABSORBED: Goblin Shaman (Level 28)]
[ACQUIRED: +12 Intelligence, +8 Sense, +156 MP]
[NEW LEVEL: 33]
Five levels from a single kill.
'No.'
I'd gone from Level 28 to 33. But I'd started at Level 8.
The System had granted me twenty levels just for surviving. Just for accepting the Singularity Protocol.
And now I could gain more by harvesting my enemies.
'This is...'
I looked at my hands—pale, steady, crackling with residual purple lightning.
'This is power.'
The High Orc Warriors stared at me. Forty monsters, levels 15-18, all frozen in shock at what I'd just done to their leader.
I felt the Boundary around me—ten meters in all directions, a sphere of absolute control. Felt the Void Harvest humming in my chest, hungry for more.
One of the High Orcs stepped forward, raised its greataxe, and roared a challenge.
I raised my hand.
"Come," I said.
They came.